Dell Alienware AW3423DW 34″ QD-OLED 175Hz (3440 x 1440)

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Ziggy_Stardog said:
So I went from thinking I was gonna have to cancel and reorder cause my card expired while waiting on backorder. Then I get the "it's being shipped" email! Good thing I didn't cancel when I called.

Well, not only did I receive it, but I got it for free!
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Congrats! They'll collect and ask you for the proper card to charge otherwise they'll send people over lol
 
Got my monitor this weekend and have been getting used to it all.

Here are my thoughts and results on calibration.


So, all the preset modes target P3 which is annoying as it will over-saturate everything normally.

The only mode that can do sRGB is Creator mode, then set to sRGB. Creator mode also has a gamma option which I set to 2.2.

Here is a measurement of that (stock Creator mode, sRGB, 2.2 gamma).

https://nicko88.com/misc/aw3423dw/stock.pdf


The only mode with a custom white point (R,G,B gains) is Custom Color mode (which is what I ultimately used for my calibration).

Also, the only modes that have R,G,B,C,M,Y color saturation controls are Game 1, Game 2, and Game 3.

So overall there is very little in-monitor control which is a shame for a monitor this price if you ask me.


This is why I love novideo_srgb though.

With just a quick measurement profile with a custom patch set (256 gray levels, R, G, B, W) you can get a great result. This profile allows for a high quality 3x1DLUT as well as custom primaries. So I can use Custom Color mode, and set the white point with the monitor's R,G,B gain controls, and then measure a profile with DisplayCAL, and then apply it with novideo_srgb. This clamps the P3 color to sRGB and calibrates the gamma and grayscale very nicely. Since the monitor tracks nice and linearly from the newly defined custom primary color points, all the colors within the gamut fall nicely into place.

And novideo_srgb applies all this through some undocumented nvidia driver functions with 0 performance hit and works automatically in any and all software including fullscreen exclusive games.

Here is a measurement with my calibration profile applied:

https://nicko88.com/misc/aw3423dw/cal.pdf


Also, been using the monitor all day, have not once heard any fan sounds.


Overall pretty pleased with this monitor and I am sure it will only continue to grow on me.
 
I got my monitor yesterday and oooooof.......was skeptical of the hype but this monitor is freaking amazing.

I have owned a c1, pg35vq, and pg32uqx and for SDR/HDR this monitor is absolutely stunning. Sure, it doesn't get all that bright but with the perfect oled contrast it's surprisingly not that noticeable. The color is great and once you add in the oled pixel response times in the mix I would take this over the pg32uqx in a heart beat.

If this is the first step in next gen oled monitors the next couple years are poised to be extremely exciting with hopefully higher resolution, higher brightness, and other tweaks along the way.

If you are long in the tooth for an upgrade buy this monitor you won't regret it.
 
Hypez said:
I got my monitor yesterday and oooooof.......was skeptical of the hype but this monitor is freaking amazing.

I have owned a c1, pg35vq, and pg32uqx and for SDR/HDR this monitor is absolutely stunning. Sure, it doesn't get all that bright but with the perfect oled contrast it's surprisingly not that noticeable. The color is great and once you add in the oled pixel response times in the mix I would take this over the pg32uqx in a heart beat.

If this is the first step in next gen oled monitors the next couple years are poised to be extremely exciting with hopefully higher resolution, higher brightness, and other tweaks along the way.

If you are long in the tooth for an upgrade buy this monitor you won't regret it.
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I think the only thing keeping me from buying this is the active fan. I wont be buying until the fall/winter, hopefully by that time the Samsung freesync equivalent will be available, and then I can properly agonize over it vs the 42" LG.
 
Monitor came in this morning and just got it running. Since this thread is many pages....what the tuning/adjustments people are making? Trying to tune in the text specifically. So far I set it to 144hz, 10 bpc color depth, Creator preset mode (2.4 Gamma, sRGB), and 75 Brightness/Contrast). Been playing around with BetterClear and found people recommend 1800. Text is definitely better, but still feels fuzzy (also probably doesn't help I had an eye examine today, so still getting my vision back).
 
So as I was afraid my monitor shows that it has no warranty when I look up the service tag and support hasn't been much help thus far.

Anyone that also ordered it launch day when their system was failing to add the advanced exchange to the invoice confirm if yours shows warranty coverage on it?

I don't actually have anything wrong with it but this is super annoying.
 
Surly said:
I think the only thing keeping me from buying this is the active fan. I wont be buying until the fall/winter, hopefully by that time the Samsung freesync equivalent will be available, and then I can properly agonize over it vs the 42" LG.
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For what it's worth, I have been using it all weekend and have not heard any fans at all.

I think my room is quiet. My PC is custom loop cooled and under my desk and I run all the fans in it at less than 1000rpm.

I can barely tell my PC is on from fan noise, and I still can't hear any fans in this monitor.
 
SirMaster said:
For what it's worth, I have been using it all weekend and have not heard any fans at all.

I think my room is quiet. My PC is custom loop cooled and under my desk and I run all the fans in it at less than 1000rpm.

I can barely tell my PC is on from fan noise, and I still can't hear any fans in this monitor.
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You will.
 
Vincent from HDTest keeps mentioning this point but do you guys notice the blacks turning gray when using with lights turned on? Or is it fairly subtle? Im curious how the blacks compare to the LG OLEDs under well-lit conditions.
 
badmojomk said:
Vincent from HDTest keeps mentioning this point but do you guys notice the blacks turning gray when using with lights turned on? Or is it fairly subtle? Im curious how the blacks compare to the LG OLEDs under well-lit conditions.
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It's not very noticeable to me. If you have a lot of light coming in the room it will be problematic for either display given how reflective these panels are. The AW seems to manage reflections a bit better than my C1 OLED as well.
 
JavaLava said:
Monitor came in this morning and just got it running. Since this thread is many pages....what the tuning/adjustments people are making? Trying to tune in the text specifically. So far I set it to 144hz, 10 bpc color depth, Creator preset mode (2.4 Gamma, sRGB), and 75 Brightness/Contrast). Been playing around with BetterClear and found people recommend 1800. Text is definitely better, but still feels fuzzy (also probably doesn't help I had an eye examine today, so still getting my vision back).
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Also try 2200 on BetterClear
 
I have mine set up now too. Unfortunately I did get some abrasive damage on my anti-reflective coating similar to the images in this reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/ultrawidem.../aw3423dw_potential_scratchesabrasions_on_the

I'm trying to decide how big of a deal that is considering how long the wait times are.

I've got some light vertical banding, which I was expecting to be honest despite the raving uniformity reports so far. I'm hoping they will fade at least a little once a few comp cycles run. You can see a faint band to the left of the cursor in the following photo:
banding.jpg


One thing I'm wondering about is my calibration report. Should I be worried about the 11-Red3 in the DCI-P3 report?
cal1.jpg


cal2.jpg


I will say that the color fringing is obvious in some scenarios like file dialogs in windows 11 with the dark theme on. I haven't tried messing with cleartype yet, but I am pretty sure I can live with it without it eating away at me or anything like that.
 
badmojomk said:
Vincent from HDTest keeps mentioning this point but do you guys notice the blacks turning gray when using with lights turned on? Or is it fairly subtle? Im curious how the blacks compare to the LG OLEDs under well-lit conditions.
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I haven't noticed it to any notable degree. Every display I've ever owned has been "gray" to some extent when it is turned off in a bright room, and this one isn't notably better/worse in that area to my eyes. It's possible that this is an issue in extremely bright rooms, but my room has some sunlight in it and it hasn't been an issue for me.
As far as glare goes, it won't reflect lights unless they're pretty much directly behind it. The Gigabyte (LG) OLED I tried last year had worse issues for me because the flat panel was able to catch and reflect light from more sources in my room. I think this has more to do with the curve than the coating though.
 
Odellus said:
You will.
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I am confused. I have not heard any fan noise in 3 days of using it now for several hours a day.

Why am I going to suddenly hear it eventually? Why does it take days to start making noise? What's going to change?

Droban said:
Also try 2200 on BetterClear
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I tried this program with that number, but it made the text in some stuff really light gray and harder to read (low contrast).

Also it did nothing for text in the vast majority of apps.

Apps including Visual Studio, Chrome, MS Office, Discord, Steam chat, etc were not affected at all by the ClearType settings and yes I did restart the computer.
 
SirMaster said:
I am confused. I have not heard any fan noise in 3 days of using it now for several hours a day.

Why am I going to suddenly hear it eventually? Why does it take days to start making noise? What's going to change?
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Fans being the only mechanically moving component in the display they are usually the first to start failing. It starts by making some noise and it gets worse until the fan fails.

For Better Cleartype Tuner contrast setting, play with it a bit and remember to restart your apps every time you change it or even better yet, log out and log back in.
 
SirMaster said:
I am confused. I have not heard any fan noise in 3 days of using it now for several hours a day.
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I'm only on my 2nd day now. I did hear some fan noise last night after I shut my system down. The monitor went into what I am assuming was a pixel cleanup cycle. The power button was flashing green. I could hear the fan make an exhale like sound every 30 seconds or so for a few minutes. It was very quiet.
 
SirMaster said:
I am confused. I have not heard any fan noise in 3 days of using it now for several hours a day.

Why am I going to suddenly hear it eventually? Why does it take days to start making noise? What's going to change?
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I have no idea. I had the same experience you did the first few days, and then for three or four days it was just constantly ramping up and down over and over all day long even with the monitor turned off.
Setting the brightness as low as it would go did nothing, turning HDR off did nothing. And I keep my room very cold, it really seems like a firmware bug.
It hasn't done it much the last couple of days fortunately.
 
I’ll share my thoughts

Office use - no issues with text. Gets plenty bright (I only need 50 brightness for sdr). White screens like browsers are incredibly uniform. No tinting. Still getting used to the curve but I don’t think it bothers me.

Gaming - Biggest upgrade in graphics quality you can have. Even better than upgrading graphics card imo. I’m used to oled even but I really enjoy having an ultra wide on my desk that is oled. I think it looks MUCH better than even my 77” oled I game on sometimes. HDR games look amazing. Even games that don’t have good graphics like deep rock galactic look much better than my lcd. I enjoy the curve for gaming and the size is perfect. Not sure I would want any bigger. Blacks seem black to me even with lights on.
 
NemoToad said:
I’ll share my thoughts

Office use - no issues with text. Gets plenty bright (I only need 50 brightness for sdr). White screens like browsers are incredibly uniform. No tinting. Still getting used to the curve but I don’t think it bothers me.

Gaming - Biggest upgrade in graphics quality you can have. Even better than upgrading graphics card imo. I’m used to oled even but I really enjoy having an ultra wide on my desk that is oled. I think it looks MUCH better than even my 77” oled I game on sometimes. HDR games look amazing. Even games that don’t have good graphics like deep rock galactic look much better than my lcd. I enjoy the curve for gaming and the size is perfect. Not sure I would want any bigger. Blacks seem black to me even with lights on.
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Deep Rock Galactic is amazing, perfect scenario to show off the strengths of OLED. Lots of black and lots of bright, vivid colors.
 
I ended up getting the Ergotron LX monitor arm for this and pretty please with it so far. It allows me to get rid of the big stand it comes with and also allows me to push it back further on the desk.
 
I just received the monitor and I'm not that impressed. I'm coming from a 32' 4k 144hz Gigabyte Monitor and the Alienware Oled is just not sharp and clear enough. Text is also not the best looking. And the screen also feels smaller. It's very responsive and fast, but its not that much better than an Acer Nitro 390hz. Watching movies and video, sure it has the colors and the black levels but just not crisp like 4k. I'm thinking of returning it and maybe getting a LG C2 42' or just wait it out till 32' 4k Oled high refresh monitors come out.
 
rocketr2 said:
I just received the monitor and I'm not that impressed. I'm coming from a 32' 4k 144hz Gigabyte Monitor and the Alienware Oled is just not sharp and clear enough. Text is also not the best looking. And the screen also feels smaller. It's very responsive and fast, but its not that much better than an Acer Nitro 390hz. Watching movies and video, sure it has the colors and the black levels but just not crisp like 4k. I'm thinking of returning it and maybe getting a LG C2 42' or just wait it out till 32' 4k Oled high refresh monitors come out.
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The Dell is a widescreen 1440p monitor so what you're saying makes sense if you've been using a 4K display previously.
 
rocketr2 said:
I just received the monitor and I'm not that impressed. I'm coming from a 32' 4k 144hz Gigabyte Monitor and the Alienware Oled is just not sharp and clear enough. Text is also not the best looking. And the screen also feels smaller. It's very responsive and fast, but its not that much better than an Acer Nitro 390hz. Watching movies and video, sure it has the colors and the black levels but just not crisp like 4k. I'm thinking of returning it and maybe getting a LG C2 42' or just wait it out till 32' 4k Oled high refresh monitors come out.
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42" 4K actually has less PPI than the Alienware. So it will be less clear sitting at the same distance. Of course if you sit further back the 42" will start to become clearer, but so will the Alienware.
 
Vega said:
42" 4K actually has less PPI than the Alienware. So it will be less clear sitting at the same distance. Of course if you sit further back the 42" will start to become clearer, but so will the Alienware.
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The thing is most will inevitibly be sitting farther from the C2 so it's perceived PPI will be greater. I don't imagine there are many who will sit at C2 distance with the AW (1-1.2m) and actually the contrary, much closer as they would to a 27 inch 1440p display.

I got my monitor today and am kind of on the fence. Gotta go check out my friends 42 C2 tomorrow to see where I stand.
 
Yeah so I still think universally recommending HDR1000 mode isn't the best way to go. In high APL games like Forza Horizen or a shooter/3rd person (AC series) outdoors, it's significantly dimmer overall with very little pay off in terms of boosting highlights compared to HDR400. I can definitely see it improve highlights of projectiles and flare from weapons in Doom Eternal for example but it's IMO not worth losing so much overall brightness. It's funny because you can lower scene APL by going into a shaded area and shoot a weapon which looks super bright and brilliant and then turn around facing outdoors and do the same and the weapon effects lose all that impressive highlight brightness.

Basically for dark games HDR1000 works great. For 75% of games that are mixed, I prefer HDR400. I'm not about to destroy my joystick swapping between them 2000x a year so I've just opted for HDR400. Unless the shortcuts can be configured to do so.

Still trying to decide if I can live with the text quality and whether the fan decides to get any louder.
 
What's the final word on how the AW3423DW handles pixel refreshers? Does it return to standby after doing one or does it power off?

I've seen a few comments around Reddit that it powers off after doing a pixel refresh instead of staying in standby.
 
JTCPingas said:
What's the final word on how the AW3423DW handles pixel refreshers? Does it return to standby after doing one or does it power off?

I've seen a few comments around Reddit that it powers off after doing a pixel refresh instead of staying in standby.
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it does indeed turn off, it also annoyingly wants you to do a pixel refresh every time you turn it on. I have it do a pixel refresh, go to bed, wake up and go to work, and when I get home and turn it on after 18+ hours of being off from a refresh... it wants me to do it again.
 
The fact that it turns off after refresh and makes me press the physical power button on the monitor like a peasant is 1 of the reasons I hate the monitor. At least with my C1 there is a remote and the power on/off state is acknowledged. With the AW I dunno if it will wake up with my mouse without first glancing at the power LED to verify it's in standby or off.

This definitely needs a firmware update to make it behave like a normal monitor.

Also after extensively testing I can say with absolute confidence that HDR1000 mode is complete trash. It's seriously less bright than SDR at max brightness most of the time in many games. Someone play Forza Horizen 5 in HDR1000 mode and then switch to HDR400 to confirm I'm not imagining things. It's a massive difference.
 
SoCali said:
The fact that it turns off after refresh and makes me press the physical power button on the monitor like a peasant is 1 of the reasons I hate the monitor. At least with my C1 there is a remote and the power on/off state is acknowledged. With the AW I dunno if it will wake up with my mouse without first glancing at the power LED to verify it's in standby or off.

This definitely needs a firmware update to make it behave like a normal monitor.

Also after extensively testing I can say with absolute confidence that HDR1000 mode is complete trash. It's seriously less bright than SDR at max brightness most of the time in many games. Someone play Forza Horizen 5 in HDR1000 mode and then switch to HDR400 to confirm I'm not imagining things. It's a massive difference.
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The power button is absolutely HATED TRASH in this house.....so fucking annoying...even using this as secondary monitor I constantly have to turn it on....if they were gonna do this then should of added a remote control
 
I use hdr 1000 and the brightness is fine (I don’t play forza but halo is pretty amazing in 1000). Keep in mind just because a mode is brighter doesn’t mean it is better. What you are getting with 1000 is the better highlights and contrast. The thing that could make 1000 annoying is if ABL kicks in aggressively but I haven’t had issues with that in games I play (halo and Eden ring)
 
Brighter is better in this case because HDR1000 looks more dim than a LG OLED side by side and like I said looks like SDR at 60% brightness in any high APL game like Forza or AC series.

I tested it myself by switching to SDR in Forza and manually pumping brightness to 100% vs HDR1000 mode. HDR1000 mode is considerably more dim due to ABL.
 
JTCPingas said:
What's the final word on how the AW3423DW handles pixel refreshers? Does it return to standby after doing one or does it power off?

I've seen a few comments around Reddit that it powers off after doing a pixel refresh instead of staying in standby.
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It powers off. Yes, it's annoying. They should change it so it goes into standby after pixel refresh.
Judd Sandage said:
it does indeed turn off, it also annoyingly wants you to do a pixel refresh every time you turn it on. I have it do a pixel refresh, go to bed, wake up and go to work, and when I get home and turn it on after 18+ hours of being off from a refresh... it wants me to do it again.
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The rules are: Has the monitor been used for at least 4 hours? Standby -> Pixel Refresh -> off. The only time it ever asked me to pixel refresh when I turn the monitor on was before I answered "proceed, and never ask me again."

The first time you see the pixel refresh reminder, you should select "Proceed and never ask me again." Then you will never see it again, and the monitor will work as described above.

There is no concern about being stuck in a pixel refresh cycle, because you can always cancel it with the power button anyways. It also only takes a few minutes to run.
 
Just get the Samsung version of this monitor. Maybe they will pump out max brightness like they do on the S95B :LOL:
 
Sancus said:
It powers off. Yes, it's annoying. They should change it so it goes into standby after pixel refresh.

The rules are: Has the monitor been used for at least 4 hours? Standby -> Pixel Refresh -> off. The only time it ever asked me to pixel refresh when I turn the monitor on was before I answered "proceed, and never ask me again."

The first time you see the pixel refresh reminder, you should select "Proceed and never ask me again." Then you will never see it again, and the monitor will work as described above.

There is no concern about being stuck in a pixel refresh cycle, because you can always cancel it with the power button anyways. It also only takes a few minutes to run.
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Buuuut you still have to deal with the monitor shutting off instead of returning to standby. A power button shouldn't sound like an inconvenience for a monitor, but I really want a true set it and forget it OLED monitor without having to think about it.
 
JTCPingas said:
Buuuut you still have to deal with the monitor shutting off instead of returning to standby. A power button shouldn't sound like an inconvenience for a monitor, but I really want a true set it and forget it OLED monitor without having to think about it.
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I didn't say it was OK as-is lol, I want them to fix it. But I'm enjoying my monitor anyway and it's hardly the least convenient thing I've dealt with in PC hardware. YMMV!
 
No Gsync module and their horrific track record with VRR + terrible HDR performance does not inspire confidence. Not to mention in NA, Samsung displays only carry a 1 year warranty vs 3 with Dell.

I'm pretty sure the Dell will be the version to get. All they need to do is fix this hard power off after pixel refresh + some better QC and it's solid in my book

My fan is dead quiet and I can only hear it with my ear literally against the rear panel. My friends on the other hand was and still is doing this strange pulsing from the top secondary fan.

Both of ours have what look like a few "bubbles" on the AR coating but they require a direct light (cellphone torch) or extreme off angle with the monitor off to even find.

I have a love/hate relationship with this monitor. 1440p is terrible and so is gingerly having to press the power button every 4 hours so it doesn't slightly rotate the damn panel on my monitor arm but the refresh rate + colors and when the stars align for HDR 1000 mode all make it amazing.

A 40-42" 4K with this panel would be end game.

EDIT: 1440p remains gross on desktop along with the subpixel layout making everything look soft (I'm too far to notice fringing) but in game DLDSR with DLSS saves the day and makes games look pretty close to native 4K in terms of fidelity.
 
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